Horizons: Empire of Istaria Q&A
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Q: You stated that Artifact's "idea of separating the server, the simulation and the client into platform technologies was what I was looking to find". Can you explain how this is significant and what its appeal is to you?
A: Making persistent worlds is one of the most complex forms of game creation. It has some of the highest production costs and greatest technological risks. The best way to lower the cost of future persistent worlds is to create a standardized set of tools for their creation. Almost all game companies think of themselves as game companies (duh!) first, and don't create their technologies to be re-used. Why should they when the computer hardware platforms they are building on change so quickly? But persistent world technology has three components: server, simulation, and client. It is possible to create a solid platform for the server portion and much cheaper to create future products if you do. The simulation portion varies depending on the game, but often has common parts that can be used for future products as well.
We are continually working on growing Horizons. This is possible because the server and simulation are abstracted away from Horizons. Our next persistent world will cost a fraction of the cost of developing Horizons. This is because of the forethought that went into creating a server that acts as a platform, independent entirely of the game.
